Welcome to the Madam Noorjehan Website

Madamji

Malika E Taranum Noor Jehan was not in a good mood when I met her for the first time in my life. She was standing behind the glass wall of the recording room at Shahnoor Studios in Lahore and was very upset. Everyone could hear a litany of obscenities in Punjabi coming out of her mouth on the Speakers. I had been waiting for as long as I could remember to see Madam Ji - as she was called by those in the industry and those close to her - in person and had been unable to sleep with excitement the night before. These were not the words I was expecting to hear in her voice. Once she had the obscenities out of her system, she took a brief pause, and said something decidedly naughty but rather charming and started laughing.

nj-friend …

Madam was recording a song for Nazir Ali that day. Flautist, Khadim Hussain, was the target of her ire. She was unhappy with the interlude he was playing and with his interpretation of raag Darbari. And standing behind the glass wall she made sure that he - and everyone else present - knew. Her words, albeit crass, were delivered with style and a tinge of humor. Her laugh at the end of the tirade was silvery and naughty, showing pleasure, embarrassment and incredulity simultaneously at having said something off color in public. In meetings that followed, I sometimes saw her utter profanities that would make bouncers at the kothas in Heera Mandi blush, some that I do not understand to this day; but she was never vulgar. Only Madam Ji could do this - deliver every word she uttered with style and class. Everything she did wasdone with class. No one had more class in the industry at the time; and no one has had it since.

Melody Queen Noor Jehan

Madam Noor Jehan, the melody queen who reigns over our hearts in death as much as in life, died in Karachi on December 23, 2000. When about twelve years ago, she was diagnosed with a heart ailment, some of us who have been her fans for as long as we can remember said it would have to be the heart, considering how many claimants it had and how often it had fluttered for those on whom she chose to smile.

We always believed Noor Jehan, the light of the world, to be indestructible like the music she brought into our lives.

Madam Noor Jehan had total recall about her early life. She remembered being carried as a child of 8 by her father, Madad Ali, through the streets of Kasur. She said she could not remember when she had started singing. "Maybe I was born singing," she added, laughing her silvery laugh.

From Kasur, the family went to Calcutta, then to Bombay and back to Lahore, only to return to Bombay. It was during those early years that she met the debonair Shaukat Hussain Rizvi with whom she first lived, then married. Her first child was born, she reminisced, when she was no more than a "bacha" herself. She was 15.

For a woman who was women's lib before there was a women's lib, Noor Jehan was conservative. Her views on women were surprisingly old fashioned, or perhaps cynical, which was strange, coming from a woman who had lived life on her own terms. She once told me, "I am Noor Jehan because I have worked hard to become Noor Jehan. I do not owe it to anyone, least of all men. If a woman works, what does she get at the end of the day? The only peace she knows is within the four walls of her home. Who can work harder than I have? And what peace, I ask you, have I known? Once the husband realizes that his wife can earn more than him, he begins to hate her. He wants her to be dependent on him. Only if a woman is entirely dependent on her husband can she hope to make a home".

Shaukat Hussain Rizvi, whom she married after a turbulent love affair in Lahore and Bombay and divorced some years after they came to Pakistan, wrote a book about her. Rizvi, who died some years ago, and whom Saadat Hasan Manto once described as a man with the mind of a watchmaker, may have settled his emotional scores with his former wife but he did not come out smelling very nice from his bitter account of their life together. Madam never responded in kind, certainly not as far as I know. Privately, she could out-swear a roomful of diehard Punjab police thanedary..

Rizvi's account was unrelieved by humour or the intense love he had felt for her once. It was a little late in the day for him to regret having fallen in love with the fledgling enchantress from Kasur with a voice like molten silver. He made repeated mention of the advice given to him by studio owner and filmmaker Dilsukh Pancholi of Lahore, "Shaukat, let this affair with Noor Jehan remain what it is, an affair. Don't carry it further." But Rizvi was besotted with the pubescent, flirtatious girl whose musical talent was prodigious and whose ambition to succeed the size of the rolling Punjabi countryside she had sprung from.

"Baby" Noorjehan's Lovely Naat

Madam's voice was a gift from God. In this holy month, enjoy this lovely Naat sung by her as "Baby Noorjehan" for G.A. Chisti sahab. The songs words are, "Jogan Ki Jholi Bhar De" and are an absolute delight. Enjoy listening to this delightful Naat.

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Dedicated to Priya

We are a group of volunteers trying to make a site in honour of Madam Noorjehan probably the greatest singer-actress ever to grace the silver screen. It is dedicated to the memory of one of Madam's biggest fans the late Priya Gainneos. Priya, we are sure you are up there listening to Madam live in heaven. May your soul rest in peace and May God give your family and friends the strength to bear the loss. We can never forget you.Thanks a lot to the Hamaraforums founders for making this dream of Priya (to have a site in honour of madam) come true.